French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Melançon, Le savoir des livres
History, Politics and Society
Benoît Melançon, Le savoir des livres
Presses Universitaires de Montréal, 2005
30 €
Publisher's overview:
We are surrounded by scholarly books. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and textbooks are indeed everywhere—from bookstores and libraries to our homes and workplaces. The internet has arguably even increased their numbers, if we are to believe the proponents of a fully digital world. Specialized books are thus no longer restricted solely to specialists. But what actually constitutes a scholarly book? Did Diderot and D'Alembert, with their Encyclopédie, design the quintessential scholarly book? How did it differ from the works of predecessors like Fontenelle? Is the knowledge popularized by Louis Guillaume Figuier in the 19th century the same as that which fills the pages of Michel Houellebecq's Atomised (Les Particules élémentaires), or even Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code? Rather than a single type of scholarly book, multiple forms exist, all of them historically determined. The authors of Le savoir des livres explore this history, seeking to understand the evolution of academic publishing from print to the internet. Along the way, they encounter academic journals and databases, printers and men of letters, scholars and popularizers. They examine the status of images in the dissemination of knowledge and even ponder the future of the scholarly book. Above all, they pay tribute to these remarkable machines that books truly are.
Scholarly books, encyclopedias, dictionaries and textbooks occupy a prominent place across modern society, circulating widely between libraries, workplaces and homes. The broader evolution of reference publishing spans centuries of printing traditions and technological shifts, engaging printers, men of letters, scholars and popularizers alike. Works of reference and specialized literature have long taken diverse, historically determined forms, reflecting changing cultural attitudes toward information and authority. From eighteenth-century compendiums to contemporary digital databases and academic journals, the mediums through which humanity organizes and transmits learning continue to transform.
In Le savoir des livres, Benoît Melançon examines the history of academic publishing and the evolving nature of the scholarly book from the era of print to the internet. The volume addresses the defining characteristics of specialized publications, the role of images in disseminating information, and the trajectory of scholarly communication. Readers interested in the history of books and academic publishing may find this work relevant to understanding how reference literature and knowledge dissemination have developed over time.